Stubbs had stammered. It had not been uttered for many a long year, nor was it embarrassment alone that brought the quaver to his voice as he pronounced it. The water dropped upon the child's wondering face, the last prayer was uttered, the last amen pronounced, the band struck up, the company dispersed, and little Blossom was made a Christian. Not that she had been so great a sinner before. She was a gentle child from her birth, and the "old Adam" whom the chaplain had prayed that her heart might be rid of, seemed hardly to have taken a lodgment there. Her pretty ways had made her the pet of the garrison. Never a Never a week passed that Orderly Sims did not appear with the compliments of the colonel's lady, and begging the loan of Miss Blossom for the day. From these visits she returned decked out like a queen barbaric, and laden with spoils. Even the Indians hanging about the post awakened to something like interest at sight of the white papoose. Their tawny faces had no terror for the child, and when she arrived at the dignity of standing upon her feet, the gentle young tyrant refused any covering for those dimpled members but the softest of deer-skin moccasins, braided, and fringed, and beaded after the pattern of the ones worn by her dusky friends. But if these were her friends, Bob White was her slave. He it was who carved a misshapen piece of anatomy-which he called a doll-for Blossom's delight, and which became her greatest treasure. And so the years slipped by; but not without seasons of bitter pain. More than once were her friends ordered away, not to return, and Blossom's tender heart was broken in the parting. Even Bob White's turn came at last, and he marched out of the gate with his company, his boyish heart heavier than the knapsack on his shoulders. He had sat up half the night to cut out a rude figure of a horse as a parting present for Blossom. It was a pitiful creature, if the truth be told. Endowed with life, it would have found locomotion impossible from the difference in the length of its legs, if nothing more, and would have been shot, in mercy, no doubt. But Blossom wept fond, bitter tears over it (Bob had baptized it already with his own), and hid it under her pillow at night, refusing to be comforted for the loss of her friend. "Why did he go away?" she asked of her mother. "Because he had to," was the not very satisfactory response. "Why did he had to?" "He must go with the rest. Somebody else'll come," Mrs. Stubbs added, with a clumsy attempt at comforting. "Somebody you'll like a deal better." The child regarded her with grave eyes. All language, beyond the simplest, was a foreign tongue to her as yet. She did not take in its meaning readily. Then, all at once, she broke into an astonished burst of tears. "But I want Bob White!" she said. She had not yet learned the hard lesson to take what one can get and be thankful and quiet, so she sobbed herself to sleep,poor little Blossom! As she grew older, the ladies at the post taught her to read and to sew, in neither of which not uncommon accomplishments Madam Stubbs excelled. Blossom conquered her letters without much difficulty, and pricked her way along the path of needlework hardly less slowly. There was a natural refinement about the child which these gentle associations nourished, and it was not book-learning or fine sewing alone the little maiden was gaining day after day, the mother saw, with uneasy pride and a twinge of jealousy. Were they not drawing the child away from her? And yet she looked with admiration upon the growing accomplishments of the girl, and the gentle ways which came to her as by right of birth, while between Blossom and her father there was neither misgiving nor fear, but a sympathy which needed not the expression of words; though they talked together often by the hour, cheek to cheek, under the stars or in the dim fire-light. "Father, what are the stars?" she asked one night, when, held in his arms, she had pulled aside the little red curtain before the window. "Them's worlds, Blossom, as big or bigger'n this, I reckon." "Oh no, father!" the child replied, with a grave shake of the head. "They're too little. And you shouldn't tell such stories to Blossom," she added, reprovingly, quoting a caution she had overheard from the lips of the colonel's lady the day before,— "because she might believe 'em." "Then they're eyes," said Stubbs, who would have named them anything to please the child. He took the reproof as gravely as it was given. "That's what they are, Blossom. They're good folks's eyes,-up in heaven." "Yes," said the child, entirely satisfied. | daughter had taken possession of Mrs. Stubbs. 66 They're eyes. And they always look at Blossom." He taught her something of arithmetic, and even ferreted a geography from his stores, over which he was hardly less mystified than she. To crown all, he was discovered one day poring over an old grammar, his sleeves rolled up, and his shirt-collar unbuttoned. "It's for the little un," he said, shutting the book up in confusion. "I thought as how she might come to it by an' by." It was told as a great joke that Stubbs had begun the study of grammar, and many were the thrusts at him in consequence, which he turned off good-naturedly; but a great trouble was beginning to gather in his heart. He had learned something, if not grammar, from the volume he could not master, and this was, that Blossom must go away. The wife of the commanding officer had spoken to him about it before now. Her own daughters were in the states at school, and Blossom must go. He could not teach her. He acknowledged it to himself at last; and the gentle, pretty little creature, with her refined ways and her warm heart, must not be left to grow up in ignorance. The colonel's wife put it to him in this way. But he knew it before she spoke. It had been growing upon him day by day, like a heavy burden. It was very kind in the wife of the commanding officer to take such an interest in a child who was, after all, only the post-sutler's daughter. She did not, indeed, suggest the fashionable establishment where her own daughters were fitting themselves for an elegant and rather mild struggle with life; but she did what was better for the child. She recommended an old school-mate of her own, now in straitened circumstances, who would perhaps, for a consideration, take charge of Blossom and superintend her education for a term of years. She even wrote and arranged the whole matter, with Stubbs's sanction. And so it came about that Blossom left home. Though how it came about, and through what agony of parting, we need say nothing here. Hearts bleed and heal again, or learn to cover their wounds, and the world goes on. And people who are neither cultured, nor hardly civilized,— as we reckon such things,-forget themselves in the good of others, and give up their own out of their arms, if by so doing a blessing may but come to them. Already a dream of making a lady of her It reconciled her, in a measure, to parting with Blossom. But no such vision consoled the father. In some way which he scarcely understood, it was to be a gain to the child. That was all. So he made the long journey over the trail to Independence with her, and from there to the town where she was to be left. Something in the face of the woman to whom she was to be intrusted pleased the father when they had found her at last, and he left the child with a sense of security which did much to comfort him, though with ill-concealed grief over the parting. Bring her up to be a straight kind of a gal," he said. Then he kissed Blossom good-bye, and turned his face back toward the wilderness, indeed! Once a year, from this time, he visited her; affecting to examine into the progress she had made in her studies, with an inward wonderment, but an outward composure, which quite deceived the girl, who believed that he knew it all. Even when she learned otherwise, she kept that knowledge to herself, for love of him. But after these visits,—which his wife seldom shared, a strange restlessness took possession of the man for a time. "I reckon by another year we shall sell out and shift to the states,-by spring, most likely," he would say-until it came to be a proverb at the post (where Blossom had grown to be a myth, as her old friends were ordered away and replaced by men who had never known her), so that when anything was particularly uncertain, its time was fixed at the day "when Stubbs sells out and shifts to the states." And now, to return to the beginning of the chapter, Blossom-aged seventeen, her education at last completed-was going back to her home. CHAPTER II. TOWARD THE SETTING SUN. A LONG train of covered wagons is slowly dragging itself westward across the plains, along the valley of the Arkansas River, winding in and out among the hillocks which mark the surface, and hugging the ground. as it crawls on like some huge white serpent upon the scorched grass. It lacks hardly an hour of sunset, and they have been upon the move since daylight, with but a short halt at noon; yet the drivers whip on the weary creatures that pull the laden wagons. They have left the river at a point where the trail divides to form a moment more they recognize the black, flying locks, and even the gaudily fringed. buckskins of Tony Baird, the half-breed scout, who, with a companion of his own profession, has been out since daylight. The strain of anxious expectation and the preparations for defense give place to the most heedless curiosity. For only in moments of actual danger is there anything like discipline in the loose-bound company. Every man rushes to the front to hear the news, the teamsters abandoning their wagons, and even pressing before stout, purplefaced Captain Luttrell, who commands the escort. One of these, whose face shows the delicate coloring, and suggests the texture, of an ox-hide, is the first to address the new-comers. But Dan Cogger is the wagon-master of the train, and has therefore some right to a front place and the first word. bow. The arc follows the windings of the | cleared behind the advancing riders, they stream, while the string which they pursue discover that their foes-if foes they are leads through a more barren region,-a val--number but these two men. And in a ley where, at this season, the middle of November, nothing meets the eye but the lowering sky overhead and the rolling land beneath it, covered with blackened, scrubby buffalo-grass. Through all the long day they have been shut into this valley of desolation, urging on the exhausted animals, and choosing this route, though it leads away from wood and water, in order, if possible, to shorten the distance to Fort Atchison. Rumors reached them, before setting out from Independence, that the Santa Fé trail was infested by hostile Indians; but, so far, they have been unmolested. Last night, however, the smoke of numerous camp-fires off in the south-west excited their alarm. A false one, perhaps, since they may have risen from some camp peaceably disposed, moving south to winter quarters. If they had been well guarded or unhampered by these heavy wagons, the dozen irresponsible men of the party might have pushed on at a faster pace to the fort. But with a force of scarce thirty men, picked up by chance at the last moment, discretion was better than fool-hardy haste. Another day will bring them to the river again, if no ill chance befall them, and the setting of another sun to Fort Atchison,-the destination of the larger part of the train. As for the remainder of the wagons, which are to go on,to Santa Fé, even,-an additional force can be procured at the fort to guard their passage, if necessary. The wagons creak on heavily as the sun slowly moves down toward its setting and the cold of a November night begins to settle down upon the weary company. Everything like song or story has long since died among them. A muttered oath at the oxen or mules, a muttered complaint disguised in a curse, are the only expressions left, and these grow stronger by condensation as the miles stretch out under their heavy feet. Suddenly, as they gaze with dull eyes upon the distance which tempts with no change from the monotonous landscape about them, a faint puff of dust rises, grows, spreads, rolls into a cloud against the reddening horizon,-a revolving yellow cloud,-from which are presently projected two mounted figures tearing down the trail to meet them. The wagons are hastily drawn into a double line, with the cavalry on either side; but scarcely is this. accomplished, when, the cloud having His shoulders, with which he pushes himself through the little crowd gathered about the horsemen, are those of a bison, hidden under a coarse flannel shirt. His long nether limbs are covered by a pair of old buckskins, tanned, one might say, with dust and ashes, and half concealed by long cavalry boots. Drawn down. over his stiff, red hair, and almost hiding his sharp, gray eyes, is a cavalry hat, from which all grace of outline departed long since, with full half its rim. "We're uncommon glad to see ye," says the wagon-master, with a grim smile, as the scouts bring up their ponies with a jerk, throwing each upon its haunches; "but 'pears to me it's hardly wuth while t' kill the beasts an' come tearin' down on us 's though a thousan' devils were arter ye." The wagon-master is somewhat ashamed of the warlike preparations made to receive the two scouts. "A thousand devils?" gasps one, out of breath with the race. "Ye may say that. An' if ye put it at two, ye wont be far out o' the way. We followed their trail for a mile or two, till it struck off toward the river, where they're camped most likely by this time, not half a dozen miles from here." "And the tracks were fresh ?" Luttrell takes up the question. "Not three hours old." Captain "Some camp, perhaps, moving south," the captain says carelessly, taking his cigar from his lips. "I'll be — if it was," replies the scout, whose professional acuteness seems called into question by this remark. "We followed 'em up sharp for a mile or two, and there wasn't the scratch of a lodge-pole among 'em." "How many, did you say?" Captain Luttrell throws away his cigar. It has lost its flavor. "Five hundred,a thousand,-ten thousand, as many as you'll want to see, I reckon; we forgot to count 'em." And without waiting to be questioned farther, the scout drew the bridle across the neck of his mustang, and rode off among the men. They were a feeble force of fighting men, a small company of cavalry, a couple of officers on the way to join their commands, and half a dozen young blades from the states in search of adventure. This was all. The teamsters would count for nothing in case of an attack. Cogger's sharp features had been work ing in a remarkable manner during this brief dialogue, as though he were trying with difficulty to swallow this unwelcome news. "We must make the best of onpleasant sarcumstances," he says at last, giving one final contortion to his face. "Ef the durned fools aint left the teams!" he burst out in angry amazement, forgetting that he had been pushed and jostled by these same men for the past five minutes. But he had been in spirit in the midst of that Comanche camp up the river, counting his enemies and balancing the rather uneven chances of the next day. He turned upon the recreant drivers now, with a skillful discharge of ingenious oaths which sent every man to his place, and by restoring the atmosphere ordinarily hanging about the train, revived its fainting courage in measure. a They must push on. Every mile gained was a fresh hold on life. With this foe between them and the fort, there was everything to fear. Still, by chance or good fortune, they might yet escape their foes, who were perhaps unaware of their approach. If they could but slip by the Indian camp before striking the river again! The darkness, the bend in the trail, would favor the attempt. Or, at the worst, they were not far from help. Dan Cogger, riding at the head of the train, his torn hat pulled down over his restless gray eyes, was already planning in his mind how, when night should have come, to dodge the Indian camp, gallop to the fort, rout out the "regulars," and return before the approach of the wagons should be discovered by their enemies. They had been fool-hardy to leave Independence with so small a force, but they had waited with the promise of an additional company, which never came, until there was almost as much to fear from drifting snow-storms as from savage foes. More, indeed, since the latter (if true to tradition or precedent) should by this time have moved their camps south of the river,-docked of feathers, and washed free from war-paint. From the weather they had so far suffered nothing. It had been unexceptionally clear, though growing colder day by day, and threatening snow of late; and as for other dangers, they had not so much as met the track of one unshod pony, until the report the scouts brought in to-night. But they had reached the debatable land,—the common hunting-ground of the tribes,—and it would be strange, indeed, if they crossed it without an adventure. Not a crack from a driver's whip broke upon the still air as the day drew swiftly to its close. Oh! the lagging indifference of the dull-eyed beasts, dragging on the slowmoving wagons, while danger crouched behind every hillock, and life waited for them hardly twenty miles away! At last, one of the oxen staggered,-attempted one more uncertain step, and fell. Before he had struck the ground, the driver had unfastened the chain, and was dragging at the heavy yoke. The great wheels swung slowly to one side, the whole train gave this feeble lurch, and the poor animal was left to his fate. More than one of the others showed signs of giving out, but they pushed on until they had reached the banks of a small creek fringed with willows, flowing at a little distance into the Arkansas River. And here they prepared to encamp for the night. The great yellow disk of a November sun hangs upon the peak of a distant "divide,” as the wagons are drawn into a close circle, within which the animals are corraled. They are guarded and tended with extra care tonight, for they are worth all that a man would give for his life. The men gather the half-consumed branches of the leafless willows, over which the Indian fires have swept, to make a feeble blaze by which they may prepare their supper when the darkness shall have hung a blanket between them and their foes. To send up the smoke of a camp-fire now, or to ring out into the resonant air the stroke of an ax, would be to bring their enemies upon them | when some one comes riding slowly to at once. Even the harsh voices of the teamsters, and the curses of the men moving among the animals, are so subdued as to lose the emphasis which is all their power. They realize, with Cogger, that it is "by dodgin', not by fightin'," they are to get in this time, if at all. A young man mounted upon a cleanlimbed, broad-flanked bay mare has struck off alone from the camp, while these preparations for the night are being made. The small head of the animal droops wearily as she realizes that her day's work is not yet done. She steps cautiously into the stream beside which the camp is forming, and where a thin film of ice is beginning to gather. Then gaining the other side, and taking heart, perhaps, of necessity, she throws off her weariness with a bound, and stretches into a gallop across the valley, shut in on either side at the distance of half a mile by irregular hills. Under a summer sky, with the grass fresh and matted into a thick carpet, the pale green of the willows lying against the darker color of the hills, and with the water-course gurgling over its shallows, this valley might have a charm of its own. But now, blackened and dreary from fire and approaching night, darkened and chill with coming winter, it holds nothing to attract the eye. The bridle drops upon the neck of the horse as it bears its rider slowly over the broken land leading to the low crest of the hill before them. That gained, the young man unslings a glass from his side, and scans the darkening landscape. Not a cloud breaks the short waving line of the horizon in the west, as the sun drops from the point where it has hung for a moment. With its fall, a flood of gold pours out along the sky. Bold and sharp against it stand out the hills, brought strangely near by the deceptive air. How narrow the earth grows for once! A gallop to the ridge beyond where the horseman is standing, and one might plunge off into space! Bold and sharp, too, rises this mounted figure in its travel-worn cavalry jacket, handsomely braided and frogged. A fine target for an arrow you would be, Captain Robert Elyot, did an Indian chance to hide behind the mound you scan so carelessly! Perhaps he thinks the same. For, gathering the loosened bridle, with a touch of his heel to the side of the animal he is off like an arrow down the slope toward the camp. Hardly has he gained the level ground, meet him. It would be impossible to tell which wears the most dejected air,-the lop-eared, lop-headed, drooping-tailed animal approaching, whose appearance is a sermon upon the vanity of life and the futility of beastly effort, or the scantily mustachioed young officer astride him. "Confound the plains!" the latter mutters gloomily, as he joins Captain Elyot. "I tell you, Elyot, a snail would sicken of the pace we have kept up the past three days.” "Your horse seems to be rather the worse for it;" and there is a laugh in the eye of the speaker as he regards the sorry beast the new-comer rides. "Yes, I know,-broken-winded,-spavined,-blind in one eye, too, I fancy. I'd like to see that dealer again. Lord! I'd like to see anybody out of this infernal region of sand and buffalo-grass. I say, Elyot, is it always like this?" And he throws a glance of contempt upon their surroundings, which should have stirred the very bosom of the earth. "Worse, a thousand times worse!" laughs the other. "If we run through this, we shall be snowed in at the fort in less than a week." "And then?” "Oh! we smoke, play cards, hate each other heartily, and hide it,—and you've no idea what an amount of surplus energy a man may work off in that way. Then there'll be five hundred red-devils, more or less, hanging about the fort to beg or steal, unless, as they say, they're out on the warpath. In that case, we may be ordered south on a campaign, with the weather cold enough to freeze the flesh and shiver it off your bones." "Good heavens!" ejaculated the younger man. "Oh! it's not so bad a life, after all, when you're used to it," the first speaker went on. "There are always ladies at the post, and if we're not sent off, we get up a dance or theatricals, or something to make the time pass." "And do you like it?" asked the younger man, when they had ridden in silence for a moment. "Do I like it? Do I like the service?” rejoined the other one, coldly. "But it is rather hard,-to send a man into this wilderness the first year," stammered Lieutenant Orme. "That depends. Everything is hard when a man is determined not to be satis |